I am frugal to a fault. That’s a fact. My goal in life is often to see how much money I can AVOID SPENDING. Maybe you can relate?

Although I am all about saving a buck, I am learning that being frugal can be quite costly if you cut expenses in the wrong area. In the past, I did everything I could to save money on groceries.

Price and price alone was my guide. But when my health began to suffer, I had to reconsider my approach to grocery shopping.

I had to figure out how to get higher quality foods without significantly increasing my grocery budget.

Although it is impossible to transition from coupon/discount grocery shopping to nearly 100% organic/natural foods without seeing an increase in your grocery bills, I did learn a few money-saving tricks along the way.

My biggest lesson through all of this has been that some things are worth paying a premium for, and you can afford to do so if you learn how to cut costs in other areas.

How to Afford Healthy Food on a Budget

1. Stop buying the cheapest meat you can find; there is a reason it is cheap!

Instead, wait for the more expensive (natural or organic) meats to go on sale. Our store regularly marks down meat by 30 or 50 percent when it gets near its sell by date. Learn when your store marks down meat, and stock up your freezer when you find it at the right price.

2. Always pick organic when it is within 1 dollar per pound of the traditional produce prices.

Instead of paying $1.00 per lb for apples, you will pay $2.00 per lb, but IT IS WORTH IT! My price point for produce is under $2.00 per lb. If we can’t get it for that (fresh, frozen, or canned), we live without.

3. Stop spending your grocery money on prepared foods.

Cooking from scratch takes some planning and some practice, but you will find that it is not that much more difficult or time consuming. It is also a great way to “trim” your budget in one area so you can afford to pay more in other areas.

I know, MORE WORK! But if you are looking to feed your family higher quality food without significantly increasing your budget, you are going to have to FIND ANOTHER WAY! Growing some of your own nutritious food is a great way to do this.

5. Find companies that sell high quality natural and organic foods in BULK!

I live in a small town, so there aren’t many options for me when it comes to bulk organic and natural foods. A few years ago, I discovered that Azure Standard delivers to my area once per month. Being able to order from this company transformed the way I shop for food.

Buying in bulk saves a ton of money, and I love “shopping” in my own pantry and freezer when my grocery money is running low at the end of the month. Azure delivers to 32 of the 50 states. If they aren’t in your area, check outthis listfrom Merissa at Little House Living to find a company that does. You could also consider starting your own co-op!

5 Days to a Fresh Start

6. Instead of planning a menu, then going to the store to buy all the ingredients, SWITCH IT UP!

Go to the store, and buy the highest quality ingredients at the best prices you can find. Then build your menu around what you have on hand. Every week I purchase the produce, meats, dairy, and pantry items that are at the best price and meet my quality standards. Then I go home and plan my menu around those items.

Learning how to shop for high quality food while trying to maintain a reasonable family budget can be a daunting task. We all need friends who support our food goals. A Best Foodie Friend offers accountability and encouragement; they make our life better one bite at a time.

I hope these tips have inspired you to start investing in your health by purchasing higher quality foods at the store.

With a bit of practice, you will discover that it is easier and more affordable then you ever thought possible. I don’t miss the extra time or money. I consider it an investment in my health, and the health of my family.

Do you try to buy natural or organic foods for your family? How has this decision affected the way you shop or budget for groceries?

Sarah Koontz is a stay-at-home wife & mother of 2 beautiful little girls. She is passionate about writing, and loves sharing her advice and experiences with anyone who will listen. She has a blog with her best friend Sammi at www.GroundedandSurrounded.com where they write about all things Healthy! Heart, Home, & Habits. You can find Sarah on Facebook , Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Reader Interactions

33 Comments

I wish more people would realize #1. Not only is it not healthy for you, but the better quality, better sourced meat just tastes so much better! I would much rather have 1 meal with good meat than 2 meals with cheap meat. And I agree that scratch cooking gets much easier with a little practice. There are so many great resources for learning great tips and recipes to be found online!

I do have one question, though…where do you consistently find fruit for $2 or less a pound? I buy a mix of fresh/frozen, organic/conventional, but produce is where my bill can go up quickly. I’d rather spend a little extra in this area though…

I used to be guilty of buying the cheapest meat I could find, I guess I honestly didn’t know any better! I still can’t often afford organic meat, but I have found that there is meat that falls in between, which is a step in the right direction for my family.

As for the produce, I find that the majority of my grocery budget is spent here…and isn’t that how it should be? My grocery store offers a “just for you” program and they often discount frozen organic veggies to 1.67 per lb. I also find that I can regularly find organic apples, bananas, carrots, cabbage, celery, oranges, potatoes, and lettuce in my produce section ON SALE for below 2 dollars per pound. I live in the midwest so I am guessing prices would be higher if you lived on either coast.

I also OFTEN find produce for below 2 dollars a pound when I buy in bulk from Azure Standard. Hope that helps, thanks for the great question!

I LOVE the idea of purchase food at the store that is on sale and building a menu around it. I am guilty of planning our meals only to spend so much more because I have to buy an item, on sale or not, to make the recipes. Looks like I’ll be reframing my thinking. Thanks for the great suggestions!

I used to do the exact same thing Tara! I LOVE to use the AllRecipes.com “SEARCH BY INGREDIENT” function to find recipes that have certain ingredients in them. It gives you the option to search for recipes “with these ingredients” but “not with these ingredients. So if I have chicken, broccoli, and brown rice on hand and I am wondering what I can make from them, I just search their site and they find me a bunch of recipes that include those ingredients. Good Luck!

Sarah, Thank you so much for sharing all of your great ideas and experiences. I need to pay more attention to sales, etc. to save on my groceries. I also look forward to a friend of mine getting chickens so I can buy eggs from her instead of spending almost $5 per dozen for organic ones. I am not allowed to have chickens where I live, so that will help! Thanks again!

Ann, I am so glad you enjoyed the article! I didn’t used to pay much attention to sales, but when you start trying to afford healthier food….you need to cut expenses any way possible! I am sad you can’t have your own chickens, they are such a delight….I hope your friend gets her “girls” soon!

As someone who is trying to explore the world of healthier foods, I want to thank you for your very informative article. These are tips that can help anyone on any budget find better options for their family. I look forward to more of your sound advice and helpful suggestions!

GREAT article, Sarah! Gardening has become one of my favorite ways to save money. There are certain things I no longer have to buy from the grocery store: jam, spaghetti sauce, soup, potatoes, onions, and a variety of herbs since I also can and freeze and dehydrate. I’m not quite self-sustaining (my husband won’t let us get chickens, darn it), nor am I one of those “off-the-grid-ers” you see on TV. But growing my own food and preserving has been one of the great loves of my life.

My question is this: I know you can as well… have you ever canned meat? I have a pressure canner, so I know that I have the equipment to do it — I’m just a little nervous. I would love to see you guest write another blog post on here (this blog is AMAZING!) and maybe talk about that a bit.

Erin is one of my favorite bloggers! I am so blessed by the fact she invited me to guest post here.

I hope you can convince your hubby to get chickens, they really aren’t that bad!

Preserving is a skill I am still developing, but I have indeed canned meat before. It turned out AMAZING and stored forever. But pressure canners still scare me. I treat the pressure canner a lot like the grill. In our home, I do all the prep work and my hubby does all the grilling…..he also does all the pressure canning 😉

I am so fortunate that the Mormons here in my neighborhood have taken this Vegas-wild-child under their wings and have helped me pressure can a few items. There’s definitely an art to it, but I get nervous every time!

Thank you SO much for sharing these fabulous ideas!!!! I love the idea of shopping for fresh and affordable produce first and building your menu around that!!! It’s hard to get fresh organic produce where I live but when I can it is definitely a must!!!! This article is great!!! Thanks again!!!! 🙂

Great ideas! I love the idea of finding good quality food on sale and building our family menu around those items. Do you have a certain quantity of food groups in your mind when you do this? E.g. 2-3 meats a week can feed my family, 3 fruits, 4 veggies, etc… Also love the Foodie Friend idea! Two heads are better than one, and I could stand to have some “retraining” help on some of my purchasing habits! Thanks for your blog post… Inspiring!

Leah, I wish I was more organized! What I love about sales is that they usually run for 1 week. So I often head to the store on the first day of the sales cycle and pick up what I think my family will eat that week. Then I try to swing by one more time before the sale cycle is over and pick up more of the stuff I want on hand for the next week. This is especially helpful with sales produce because it only lasts so long!

With meat, I tend to stock up on as much as I can afford (we are on a cash monthly grocery budget, so sometimes I run out!) and freeze it. So I will go weeks between purchasing meat at the store. Utilizing a deep freezer and purchasing meat in bulk (when the price is right) has really helped me save money.

I too really appreciated the idea of purchasing what’s on sale then building your menu off that. I plan a weekly menu which does help only spending what I need but have been desiring to cut down even more. Thanks, Sarah!

Abby, you might benefit from a combination approach. Build a weekly menu around the items in the sales flier from your local grocery store. This way you are benefiting from meal planning and shopping the sales! If I were more organized, this would definitely be my approach.

For years my son has been on a very restrictive gluten/casein free diet. I have become a pro at shopping healthy and organic for him…but when it comes to making the switch for our whole family I become a little overwhelmed. I look at how much we spend for our son and think “there is no way we can shop this way for the whole family.” However, your tips give me hope…and a good starting place! I am even going to reevaluate how I shop for my son now!

I have been 100% gluten free for a few years now. I think the key to keeping it affordable is finding low cost naturally gluten free foods. I do not keep a gluten free kitchen, my husband and girls still eat wheat. But the majority of our dinners are gluten free, and I believe that the cost of gluten free substitutes is declining as they become more mainstream.

For instance, last year my grocery store came out with their own line of gluten free products. They cost 25-50% less than the name brand alternative. How great is that?

I also think that slow and steady is the best approach when you are trying to feed your family a healthier diet. I remember when the cost of the organic produce used to send a shock wave through my system! I would go to the farmers market and want to buy everything but leave with nothing because I just didn’t think I could afford it.

But I slowly started paying “more” for certain things until that became more comfortable to me, and I found *SHOCK* that I could afford healthier food! I still can’t afford to be 100% organic or 100% gluten free for my whole family….but that is OK. Maybe someday 🙂

What an awesome, inspiring article. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I will definitely continue to use your website for inspiration on so many vital topics. Keep up the great work and keep the good stuff coming!

Sarah, Wonderful ideas! They are practical and doable! You inspired me to check out the organic section at my local grocery store. I came home with four boxes of organic lettuce/spring mix for 99 cents per box! It still looks very good, but the expiration date is getting near. I put one in the fridge to use for salads and froze the other 3, which work perfectly in smoothies! I’m so excited about my savings as well as getting more greens into my family’s diet! Thank you for your inspiration! I look forward to reading more of your articles!

Kristen, that is AWESOME. I would have never thought to buy extra greens near their expiration date and use them up in smoothies. So smart. I am so glad I was able to encourage you, thank you for returning the favor! 🙂

I love tips #3-6 the best. Ordering food in bulk from Azure, cooking from scratch, planting a garden & having chickens, and meal planning around the food we have on hand (or is on sale) are the things that allow me to feed my family healthy food while not breaking the bank at the grocery store.

I also freeze greens for smoothies. It adds an element of health that is undetectable taste-wise.

You must have a better blender than me Heather! I still haven’t found a way to blend greens into a smoothie with my ninja without it being just a bit too chunky for my liking. Hoping to justify the cost of a Vitamix as a blogging expense at some point….ha ha. What we do for the sake of our blogs!

Erin and Sarah, great article! I’m all about buying good non-CAFO meat, organic produce, whole ingredients rather than packages of “convenience” foods. Cooking from scratch is the only way to avoid transfats, HFCS, MSG, excess sugar and salt, harmful chemicals, etc.

I just want to thank you for this post! All the grocery money saving posts I read never have healthy, organic foods as an option and I always think “of course your monthly groceries only cost $250, you are eating junk” So this helped me greatly! My husband and I are hopefully going to get chickens but when it comes to gardening I don’t have a green thumb so it makes me nervous! How do you find out when your grocery store has sales on meat?

Thanks for the comment and the compliment Emily! I am never organized to figure out stuff like that, so I just know where the sale meat goes in the store and always check in on it when I am shopping. I can say that different stores (even from the same chain) have different policies, and I find far more discounted meat at one store than the other. I have also heard that you can talk to the guys at the meat counter and ask them if there is particular time or day that they go through and mark stuff down. Best of luck! Chickens ROCK and Gardening is a SKILL not a gift…don’t be afraid to keep trying until you get it right. 🙂

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Grace-Filled,Healthy Homemaking

I’m Erin. Follower of Jesus. Wife to Will. Mommy to a lovely trio of redheaded girls and one sweet baby boy. Professional dreamer. Drinker of chai tea and peppermint mochas. Recovering overwhelmed homemaker. I’m here to encourage, educate, and empower you to live a grace-filled, natural life. Won’t you join me?